The Numbers Behind Scott Colom’s Stunning Upset in the Mississippi Senate Race

To pull off Mississippi’s first Democratic Senate victory in more than four decades — in a state Donald J. Trump won by nearly 23 percentage points just two years ago — Scott Colom couldn’t simply ride a shifting national mood over the finish line.

A win would require high turnout among Black voters, who make up nearly 40 percent of the state’s population, and inroads with white voters. It also would not hurt if his opponent, Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, did worse than other Republicans on the ballot, as she had in the past.

In the end, he achieved all of that and more. Mr. Colom is the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Mississippi since John C. Stennis, a staunch segregationist who opposed civil rights for much of his tenure. He will also be the first Black man to hold the position since the Reconstruction era. In a year of upheaval for the Senate, Mr. Colom’s win stood above the rest as Mississippi was the reddest seat flipped by a Democrat.

As in other Southern states this year, Black turnout in Mississippi was high. Voters in numerous majority-Black counties turned out at rates nearly as high as the 2024 presidential election — a remarkable achievement in a midterm. In some majority-Black neighborhoods, more voters turned out for this election than did so in 2024, even though that election featured the first Black woman presidential nominee.

The Black share of the Mississippi electorate rose to 33 percent in 2026, compared with 30 percent two years ago, according to Times Voter Trends, which estimates how demographic groups voted using a variety of data sources. Black voters in the state are overwhelmingly Democratic, and 91 percent of them supported Mr. Colom. An increase of a few percentage points in the Black share of the electorate translates to large gains for the party.